Apple blocks iPhone jailbreak by breaking iBooks

Apple has found a way to get back at users who have decided to jailbreak their iPhone by implementing a check to see if an iPhone is jailbroken. If it is, you won’t be able to use iBooks on it anymore. At least, that’s what users of the greenpois0n jailbreak have discovered when attempting to use the hack to bump up their iPhone to 4.2.1.

After using greenpois0n, if a user opens up iBooks on their iPhone they will be presented with an error stating there is a problem with the configuration of the iPhone and you should use iTunes to restore your phone and reload iBooks. It seems that Apple has gotten smart on jailbreaks and the iBooks app drops an improperly signed binary. If it can run, Apple knows you have a jailbroken device and your book won’t open.

Of course, somebody has already figured out how to work around this issue. A new version of Pwnage Tool, another jailbreak tool, fixes the iBooks issue. Cydia packages will also be made available to fix the iBooks issue which means it will only be a matter of time before the greenpois0n jailbreak hack is updated as well.

It’s interesting that Apple is throwing up roadblocks to prevent people from jailbreaking the iPhone when it is perfectly legal to do so as declared by the Library of Congress. That’s an important fact that people tend to forget.

Apple may still say it is putting in these “checks” because of the fact that jailbreaking your iPhone voids the warranty, but keep in mind the phone is easily restored to factory settings in iTunes. So, in reality Apple probably has one reason for putting in these “checks”: it wants to maintain full control of your iPhone.

Speak Your Mind

hodar

I’m hearing that Apple wants me to buy my books from Kindle.

This seems borderline legal, and more than a little unethical. I bought and paid for my iBooks, Apple has my money – now, because I did something completely unrelated to my iBook purchase – I cannot read the books I purchased.

I can’t speak to all jailbreakers, I can only speak for myself. I jailbreak to I can use MyWi. I own my phone, I pay for a dataplan; how I consume that 2 GB/month is my business – not AT&T’s. I think there will be yet another pesky lawsuit for Apple to fight, because of this.

Compare this to ‘chipping’ your car. If the manufacturer detected you changed the engine’s chip – and then disabled the AC, or the radio – would there be a lawsuit? Yup … and would the automobile manufacturer have a leg to stand on? Nope.

Michael

Actually, Apple doesn’t block the app from running or the user from using the app to buy books. Apple is, however, blocking the user from reading those books for which Apple has just taken their money. The error doesn’t pop up until you try to read a drm book. Nice move Apple, your really getting shady. Either block the entire app from running or block the ability to purchase as well.

TJG

IMHO, this is wrong, but when you “buy” software, technically you are licensing it. Apple can set conditions under which you are no longer allowed to use the software.

If one jailbreaks, does that void the warranty forever, or only while it’s jailbroken? I understand that restoring it to factory setting removes any evidence of jailbreaking, so they can’t tell. I’m asking about the terms of the license.

Also, what’s so hard about detecting a jailbreak? if find(Cydia) then Jailbreak=TRUE;

God™

Actually, Comex (famous in the jailbreaking world) just released a little patch that you run on a jailbroken phone, that fixes this issue (and most jailbreaks will include this patch in the future).